[angelize56]

I don't mean to sound heartless....but someone NOT a convicted killer deserves the liver first in my opinion. Take care, angel

YORK, Nebraska (AP) -- Calvin Stock's life was saved by a liver transplant three years ago, and he would hate to see anyone else lose their chance at survival because a convicted killer was ahead of them on the transplant list.

But that's exactly what could happen, Stock says, because of Carolyn Joy's conditional approval to be included on the list of 118 Nebraskans and 17,300 people nationwide waiting for new livers.

"She made her choice. It sounds real cruel to say that, but nonetheless, we all have choices in our life," said Stock, a 68-year-old retired Lexington farmer.

Joy, convicted of murdering another prostitute in Omaha in 1983, admits her liver was ruined by almost daily heroin and alcohol abuse over nine years.

Stock fears people will tear up their donor cards if they learn their organs may go to felons.

"It's just going to do great damage to the organ donation program as we know it," he said.

The woman known as Mama Joy by other inmates at the Nebraska Correctional Center for Women has been the focus of a medical ethics debate since Omaha television station KETV first reported February 3 that she had been evaluated by doctors for a possible liver transplant.

Joy, 49-years-old and drug free for nearly 20 years, said she is not surprised that others object to her possibly getting a liver.

"I know how society is," Joy said. "It's like, 'Oh my gosh, she's a murderer and on top of that, she wants one of our organs? What makes her so special?'"

But the biggest complaint from the dozens of people who have called or e-mailed the Nebraska Health System in Omaha, where Joy would get the transplant, is that the state would have to pay for it, said Kolleen Thompson, manager of the hospital's Organ Recovery Services.

Taxpayers would pay up to $200,000 for Joy's transplant because of a 1976 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that prisoners have a constitutional right to equal medical care. The decision requires government entities to cover the medical costs of their inmates.

A 32-year-old California inmate last year is believed to be the nation's first prisoner to receive a heart transplant. The convicted robber died 11 months later.

Dr. Alan Langnas, head of transplant surgery at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, said doctors are only considering the transplant from the standpoint of whether Joy is medically a good candidate.

"Whether or not she's a prisoner or not does not enter the equation," Lagnas said. "Ethically as a physician, it's our responsibility to be advocates for whatever patients we are treating."

Dr. Lainie Friedman Ross with the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago, said people should receive transplants based on need, not social standards.

"I'm a workaholic, and when I get my first heart attack I'll say I've earned it but no one will keep me off a list for that," Ross said. "We don't blame the workaholic but we blame the alcoholic. ... Yeah, she belongs on the list like I belong on the list."

Bill Grimes, 76, received a heart transplant 15 years ago and helped start a support group for transplant recipients in central Nebraska called Seconds for Life.

"I just absolutely can't pass judgment on anybody," Grimes said. "I feel everybody should have the same chance I had."

Whether Joy gets a liver will depend on her. Doctors have told the 5-foot-10, 195-pound woman that she must lose 30 pounds and get her diabetes under control before they will put her on a transplant list. She's already lost 70 pounds the last two years, some because of illness.

She's given herself until mid-April to meet both goals. Once the weather warms up, she plans to restart her exercise regime of eight laps around the prison courtyard twice a day.

"The doctors that I've seen said that I need to get busy and start doing what I'm supposed to or else I won't make it to see my liver come in," said Joy, who wears stocking caps to hide her thinning auburn hair.

Joy says she doesn't know if she deserves a liver. She believes she has paid her debt to society and answers only to her family and God. But she says she has trouble sleeping when she thinks about all the other people who need livers.

"I want a chance just like they do," she said.

She said if she were to get a new liver and be paroled at her next hearing in 2006, she would take her 3-year-old grandson to the movies and watch him grow into a young man.

Joy said she would consider passing up a liver to allow someone in a more dire situation to get one, especially if the person immediately behind her on the transplant list was a young mother.

"I'd step back and let that lady have the liver because she has a child," Joy said. "She has a life."

She also has made peace with the possibility she may not get the transplant and soon die.

"I'm not going to blame nobody," she said.

[Shadow Bea]

NEW YORK (March 1) - Former President Bill Clinton has been tapped for jury duty.

A questionnaire designed to help defense lawyers and prosecutors select a jury for a federal attempted murder case indicated that Prospective Juror No. 142 was actually William Jefferson Clinton.

Although Clinton's name was never revealed at a hearing in federal court in Manhattan on Friday, his answers, read aloud in the courtroom, provided the giveaway.

Under previous jobs held, the respondent answered President of the United States. He also wrote that he thought he could be fair and impartial, despite his ``unusual experience with the O.I.C.,'' or Office of Independent Counsel.

David E. Kendall, Clinton's lawyer, said that Clinton is ready and willing to serve. ``The former president is subject to jury duty, he's done his part, and if selected he would serve,'' Kendall told The New York Times in Saturday editions.

Federal prosecutors and the attorney for the defendant, Dushon Foster, disagreed about whether Prospective Juror No. 142 should be selected for the case. Foster is charged with attempted murder in an alleged gang shooting and could face life in prison, if convicted.

``Any particular question in Questionnaire 142 that you want to direct me to?'' Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald asked the prosecutors, the Times reported.

``All of them, judge,'' a prosecutor, Daniel M. Gitner, said.

``I suspect there has never been anyone who answered yes to so many questions and survived the voir dire process,'' said Buchwald, referring to the next step in the jury selection process - a personal interview that prospective jurors who were not removed by the judge would undergo.

Defense lawyer Roger L. Stavis, disagreed with the prosecution and said that No. 142 should not be immediately disqualified.

But Buchwald, who was appointed by Clinton in 1999, appeared to agree with the prosecutors, citing concerns about sensationalism.

``To have Juror 142 here, with Secret Service protection is to, it seems to me, undermine our efforts to keep the case focused quietly on the evidence,'' the Times cited Buchwald as saying.

Buchwald said if she changed her mind, she would let the prosecutors and defense attorney know by Monday.



03/01/03 15:06 EST

[angelize56]

Dear Bea: Oops! Beatcha to it <a href="http://forums.techguy.org/t121520/s.html"> here</a>! Take care. angel *HUGS*

[Shadow Bea]

Originally posted by angelize56:
Dear Bea: Oops! Beatcha to it <a href="http://forums.techguy.org/t121520/s.html"> here</a>! Take care. angel *HUGS*

Sorry Angel Oops! is right.. and I did a search too
*Hugs Back atcha*
Bea

[n2gun]

Traffic warden tickets bus at bus stop
Fri Feb 28, 8:51 PM ET


LONDON (Reuters) - Bus passengers in Manchester were dumbstruck after a traffic warden slapped a 40-pound parking ticket on their bus when it halted at a bus stop.



Moments after driver Chris O'Mahoney pulled his Number 77 bus into a bay marked "Buses Only" an over-enthusiastic traffic warden issued the ticket, newspapers reported on Saturday.


"All my passengers queuing to get on were gobsmacked (surprised) when the warden dashed over," O'Mahoney told the Sun newspaper.


O'Mahoney said he repeatedly tried to point out to the warden that the vehicle he was driving was a bus and had every right to be stopped at a bus stop.


Red-faced council officials subsequently scrapped the fine.


"Issuing this ticket showed a lack of judgment," a council spokesman said.


The warden is to be retrained.

[eggplant43]

Sounds like an IQ test is in order

[n2gun]

Naked Jogger in N.Y. Continues Streak
The Associated Press
BINGHAMTON, N.Y.

The naked jogger of New York has struck. Again.

His latest appearance was in a Binghamton downtown parking garage around lunch time Tuesday, just as temperatures rose to nearly freezing.

And, as in each of his previous runs, he eluded police who rushed to the scene.

An employee said the streaker has been seen running around the six-level parking garage at least 20 times since last August. The last time was in late November.

Police said they can't figure out how he's able to get dressed and emerge from the garage undetected.
Tuesday, Mar. 4, 2003

[n2gun]

The case of the Missing Sandwich!

*************************************************




Return to story

Police pass the stolen sandwich case along to the feds
March 5, 2003 12:00 am


The Associated Press,

(Des Moines, Iowa-AP) -- Who took the peanut butter sandwich?
It may be too sticky a case for police in Des Moines, Iowa. So they've turned it over to the federal Transportation Security Administration.

Christine Woods says her sandwich was taken from a break room at the Des Moines airport.

The only ones who have access to the room are 16 federal security workers. They have to punch a code into a keypad to get in.

Police Lieutenant David Huberty says the theft of a sandwich is still a theft. But he says if he were to send a detective to interview 16 people about it -- it would be an "inappropriate use of resources."

The woman whose sandwich is gone says she's afraid a wallet or purse could disappear next time.



(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

[n2gun]

Fla. Mom Births Third Child on 3-3-03
The Associated Press
FORT WALTON BEACH, Fla.

Good things came in threes for a Florida Panhandle mother.

Samantha Noble gave birth to her third child on Monday, March 3 _ that's 3-3-03 _ at exactly 3:33 p.m.

Dean Noble weighed in a 7 pounds, 2 ounces. He was 19 inches long.

"When I had my first ultrasound, I remember thinking, 'This better not be triplets,'" his mother said. "The threes have to stop sometime."

She said her husband, Aaron, joked about having the child at 3:33 p.m. when he brought her to Fort Walton Beach Medical Center.

"I told him, 'No, I don't want to wait that long,'" she said.

Although baby Dean's two siblings, ages 8 and 3, had complications at birth, he appears to be healthy.

"This is the first time I might be able to leave with a perfectly healthy baby," Samantha Noble said. "Three might be lucky after all."
Thursday, Mar. 6, 2003

[angelize56]

Thanks Jerry for a lovely story! Lucky lady to be blessed with triplets! Take care. angel

[angelize56]

HARTFORD, Wisconsin (AP) -- A man was in critical condition Friday after a bomb he was making on his kitchen table blew up, according to authorities who said they found other explosive devices inside the apartment.

The blast damaged the walls and ceiling of the apartment and blew out the living room windows of the apartment in this small town just outside Milwaukee.

"We found a large quantity of explosive material and chemical compounds," Police Chief Thomas Jones said. "I'm not a bomb expert by any means, but we were very, very lucky last night."

Police and agents for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms said the 33-year-old man was severely injured Thursday evening when the bomb went off. Buildings in the surrounding block were evacuated for more than six hours.

Jones said the ATF found 15 more explosive devices in boxes. He said there was evidence the man had prices listed for the devices.

The man was taken to a Milwaukee hospital. He has undergone almost 16 hours of surgery to reconstruct his hands, Deputy Fire Chief Paul Stephans said. His name was not released, but hospital officials said he was in critical condition.

[eggplant43]

Oh my, and more importantly, why?

[angelize56]

Bruce: Makes you feel really secure living in a townhouse like I do! I already worry if one burns they all do! A townhouse caught on fire here a few years ago and the fire department discovered a flaw in the construction....the fire spread rapidly from t-house to t-house via the attics! There were no firewalls between units in the attics! I haven't seen anything done about it yet either.

I'm glad no one else was injured by this man's bomb blast! You're right about wondering why also...and the fact there was a price list there! Gee! Take care. angel

[eggplant43]

I think the price list is the scariest thing. Was this someone with a thriving business, or just some fool with delusions?

[angelize56]

Mafiosa? Terrorist? Kook? Disgruntled Employee? Unhappy Husband Club? Sheesh! Who knows! Makes you wonder how many others are around like him!